Students Of the World - Berkeley

Media That Shines Light On Progress

[berkeleysow]

We just had our Fall 2014 semester technical workshop where we had crash courses on cinematography, lighting, editing, and sound! Thank you for all those who came out to the workshop and hope you gain some new skills for upcoming projects! November is approaching and we are finally starting on the biggest project of the semester in different groups, they will choose their topic and do a 3-10 minutes documentary or other forms of media. More information to come. Students of the World is meeting every monday 7-9pm in wheeler 226. come drop by our meetings if you are curious about what we do and how you can join. We will have lessons/presentations on various topics on media/social change every week till the end of the semester.

[berkeleysow]

10 Seconds With a Homeless Man

by: Brett Tanonaka

Humans have a tendency to place people of similarities into subgroups in society. These subgroups are perceived by socially constructed stereotypes that have gained notoriety throughout history. Despite the fruitfulness and diversity of the Bay Area, there is one particular subgroup that has claimed the streets of Berkeley for years, the homeless of Berkeley. My perception of homeless people for the most part has been negative—they are lazy and smelly people that take advantage of the working class by begging. However this all shifted one day while walking home.

It was late at night on a Friday and many people were out partying. As I was passing Artichoke Bastille’s I noticed a homeless man was picking up trash on the side of the street. I didn’t think much of it until I saw him open up a trash receptacle and place the rubbish in there. Immediately after, I thanked him and he responded in a very respectable voice “no problem.” For some, those ten seconds would not mean much but as I continued to ponder what just happen while I walked home it came to me. 

My initial thought of this man enveloped my idea of a homeless man. Similar to what many others would experience, his raggedy clothes and Einstein hair innately convinced me that I was somehow better than him, just because I have clean clothes, have a job and go to school. 

A beautiful lesson I learned while attending the University of California, Berkeley is that every person has a story. Ask any student here why they believe they were accepted into Cal and you will get an incredible story of what they have been through, from founding their own non-profit organizations to coding apps that are already on the Android marketplace; Cal students are not your ordinary bunch.

After my run in with the homeless man I wanted to expand on this idea of discovering people’s stories, in specific the homeless people around Berkeley. Many people walk down Shattuck and Telegraph and don’t give two looks to the homeless living on the street. I want to give people a reason to connect with our fellow Berkeley citizens.

Because of this event I plan on making a video or news column sharing the stories of Berkeley’s homeless. My idea is to offer to trade their story for a free lunch that we can have together. Currently I am in the process of working with a magazine out of Oakland in hopes to collaborate on the project to get the stories featured. My overarching goal of this project would be to have others that live in low-income areas emulate my actions so that we can change the general perspective we as a society have against homeless people.

No I do not believe we need to “clean up” the streets of Berkeley by ridding of the homeless. Just like you, they add to the unique culture surrounding our school and city. The stereotypes around homelessness have such negative connotations, many of which are undeserved. I truly believe many of the people living on the streets of Berkeley are not homeless, just houseless. Maybe it was because of some financial hardship, or maybe some people just prefer to live on the street. Either way we all contribute to society in our own, yet valuable ways and we all have a story. I am going to shed light on these stories. 

[berkeleysow]

Tech Workshop + Still Time to Join!

Come to our Tech Workshop next Sunday, 2/9 from 11AM-2PM! Free and efficient crash courses on camera techniques, editing, photoshop, photography, storyboarding and more. Also, want to be a part of our organization but missed the info session? Click Here to join as a director or crew member!

[berkeleysow]

This past December, Brett Tanonaka, Berkeley SOW’s Vice President, participated in a Hyundai-sponsored project with other Bay Area filmmakers to create the artistic series, “16th Street,” which aired its first episode on Jan. 25th. Take a glimpse of the creative process here!

[berkeleysow]

Come hang out with Students Of the World on Wednesday, Jan. 29th!

[berkeleysow]

Welcome to BerkeleySOW!

Hello everyone!

This is the temporary blog of Students Of the World at UC Berkeley :)